From time to time, I’ve noticed a similar repeat feeling of irritation with someone I consider a dear friend.
It finally happened often enough for me to pause and have a conversation with myself, and wonder what my orientation was that produced annoyance.
The best way to find out is to un-censor yourself on paper. No editing. Childish as can be. Embarrassing, silly, non-PC, ridiculous thoughts.
Write them anyway, blow it up bigger than it actually is, so you can see it like looking under a microscope or getting out the magnifying glass.
This is what it looked like:
he can’t just listen
he compulsively gives advice
he’s always trying to solve my problems
he either doesn’t take my comments seriously at all, or he takes them too seriously
he’s unable to sit in the Don’t Know mind when it comes to troubling feelings, or situations
And then there was a real unedited clincher: he acts like he’s a genius spiritual coach and some kind of enlightened person dishing out what he thinks of as brilliance.
NOT.
I love how immature it felt, like once I gave some wording to the energy, there was a “Don’t Tell Me What To Think or Feel You Pompous Holy Jerk!”
Yikes.
I was so sure he was an Advice Giver.
Until I did The Work.
Let’s look at the one thought that created the big surge of stressful energy, the one that’s coming out of the part of me who is about, oh I don’t know….twelve?
“He thinks he’s so enlightened, and he’s not. (Be Real! Get back on equal footing with me!)”
Kinda felt petty and babyish.
But I know this sinking into a childish feeling is a great cry for help, and this voice is the one I want to befriend most of all….the voice that yells and pisses and moans and feels……hurt for some reason.
So is it true, he shouldn’t think he’s so awakened he can give me advice?
Am I sure he actually believes he’s enlightened? Or above me?
No.
Wow. It was a clear, quick “no”.
I am assuming wildly that his advice-giving or advice-sounding words mean he thinks he’s better than me.
He’s on the problem-solving track.
How many times have I done this in my life? Like, thousands?
I see how I react when I believe he’s espousing his enlightenment, or telling me what I should do (and he’s even kind about it).
I have pictures zoom through my mind of his screwed up past, or the way he acted many years ago, even though he hasn’t acted like a volatile person in a super long time. I feel defensive. I don’t want to talk with him. I think he can’t hear my simple complaints without taking them seriously.
I feel separate from him, like he’s far away over there, and I’m over here. I miss the feeling of being connected. I feel tense and contracted, and like I want to hurt him, or fight him or something.
At war. And sad underneath the urge to fight.
Who would I be without these thoughts?
Without these impulses that feel just like the way my teenage daughter sometimes talks about the world, events, politics, with a very opinionated and passionate, intense, slightly angry or critical tone?
I often want to tell her “I’m listening, don’t worry, I’m right here with you. I don’t know if I agree with anything you’re saying, but I hear you’re upset about the way the government seems to work here. Don’t get mad at me! I don’t have any answers! Stop being so intense!”
Maybe he feels the same way about me.
Well….I have been very passionate, and intense, in my life. I’ve eaten myself into a frenzy long ago in my addictive years, I’ve obsessed about my life going wrong, I’ve felt despair, I’ve felt angry.
Suddenly I realize, when I speak like a victim, some people might automatically react by trying to rescue me. Offer advice. Help the poor little thing (me) out.
Who started it?
Who reached out with a story of sadness and disappointment and complaining?
Who am I actually telling a sad story to? Someone who can easily respond with clarity, or someone who doesn’t really like to talk about tough times and un-doing beliefs! Someone who has lost everything and almost died due to drug addiction several years ago.
It’s like asking a homeless person on the street (who may be brilliant, by the way) for mortgage and real estate advice.
Really?
Turning the thoughts all around…..
I can’t just listen
I compulsively give him advice
I’m always trying to solve his problems (and my own)
I either don’t take his comments seriously at all, or I take them too seriously
I’m unable to sit in the Don’t Know mind when it comes to troubling feelings, or situations…especially with him
And then what about that clincher: I act like I’m a genius spiritual coach and some kind of enlightened person dishing out what I think of as brilliance.
I’ve done this, to myself, a hundred times. Like when I’ve closed a book I read, and said “from now on, this is how I’ll do it!”
I’m also doing it to him, right in the moment I’m giving him advice to stop giving me advice.
It’s true, I don’t really listen to him (I dismiss him) and I think about how he could improve his life (in my head) and I feel kind of sad still about the years he was gone on drugs.
I’m still in the past, when he’s up to speed in the present, living a very happy life with almost no possessions and no urge to “succeed” the way I do.
“Stand naked in front of me now, without the protection of your favorite philosophy, without your dusty old books, without quoting what you have read or been told, without even the familiar thought ‘who meets who?’ or ‘it’s all just a story’ to comfort you or separate us. If you think you have found the answers, if you’re excited because you think you’ve ‘arrived’, even if you believe yourself to be ‘the enlightened one’, that’s okay, it’s nothing to be ashamed of, we’ve all been through it. And if you think you haven’t found the answers yet, if you feel lost and lonely and far from home, that’s okay too. Just stay close….let us sit together awhile.” ~ Jeff Foster
What I really want, is to love and accept. Myself and the people I know and everyone else, too.
